My trusty TUSL2-M mobo gave up the ghost a couple of weeks ago, when I finally got around to investigating it looks like it has some bad (ie. leaking) capacitors near the power supply section.
I don't have the equipment or space available to attempt a recap so I pulled the trigger on this: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/361420915626
Asus TUSL-L - looks like an OEM version of the TUSL2-M that ASUS supplied to HP for their Pavilion 710 series.
Anyone ever worked with one of these ? Any gotcha's to look out for ?
I know back in the day we had to look out for stuff on OEM boards like funky power supply pinouts and such, I am hoping that's not the case here.
Any issues using the standard Intel drivers for the 815 chipset ? Or supporting the Tualatin 1.4S ie. the "server" version of the CPU ?
Any advice is much appreciated, I'd never heard of this mobo before today but there are no TUSL2-M's to be found right now and I need the MicroATX form factor to fit my case.
You could probably find someone to re-cap your old board, but likely wouldn't be cheap.
Don't know the specifics of this board but my Intel Socket 7 board is an OEM version made for RM computers in the UK. The only pitfall is the BIOS, which has an OEM specific version number and the Intel tool won't let me flash the standard Intel BIOS, so you may run into that issue with your HP board. There are probably third party tools that could do it, but don't want to take the risk as I'm not having any issues with the board so better not to try and fix what isn't broken. Think it was mostly Dell systems that used the same connector as an ATX PSU but had a different pinout.
Hopefully the caps on your new board are OK as I guess it will be of a similar age. I have a P3 system with, I think, an Asus CUSL2 board in the loft and I'm worried about what state the caps are in now - hasn't been used for at least 5yrs.
My Retro systems:
1. Pentium 200, 64mb EDO RAM, Matrox Millennium 2mb, 3DFX Voodoo 4mb, DOS6.22 / Win95 / Win98SE
2. Compaq Armada M700 laptop, PIII-450, Win98SE
3. Core2Duo E6600, ATI Radeon 4850, Win XP
The only pitfall is the BIOS, which has an OEM specific version number and the Intel tool won't let me flash the standard Intel BIOS, so you may run into that issue with your HP board.
This can usually be circumvented using the BIOS recovery jumper (if available) and booting up with the prepared BIOS disk in the floppy drive. In case you are referring to your Advanced/ML board, the functionality is called "Recovery Boot Enable", move J1F1 from pins 1-2 to 2-3. Then the standard Intel BIOS provided via floppy disk will be flashed when turning on the system. After completion notification, turn off the system, move the jumper back to 1-2 and remove the floppy, and you are done. Just check the BIOS settings after reboot since those will be on the defaults again.
The only pitfall is the BIOS, which has an OEM specific version number and the Intel tool won't let me flash the standard Intel BIOS, so you may run into that issue with your HP board.
This can usually be circumvented using the BIOS recovery jumper (if available) and booting up with the prepared BIOS disk in the floppy drive. In case you are referring to your Advanced/ML board, the functionality is called "Recovery Boot Enable", move J1F1 from pins 1-2 to 2-3. Then the standard Intel BIOS provided via floppy disk will be flashed when turning on the system. After completion notification, turn off the system, move the jumper back to 1-2 and remove the floppy, and you are done. Just check the BIOS settings after reboot since those will be on the defaults again.
Thanks. To be honest I'm scared to do that as it's the only Socket 7 board I own and I'm not having any bios-related issues with it, so think it's better to resist temptation!
Good to know it can be circumvented - hope the same is true for OP's board if that bios is HP specific.
My Retro systems:
1. Pentium 200, 64mb EDO RAM, Matrox Millennium 2mb, 3DFX Voodoo 4mb, DOS6.22 / Win95 / Win98SE
2. Compaq Armada M700 laptop, PIII-450, Win98SE
3. Core2Duo E6600, ATI Radeon 4850, Win XP
The only pitfall is the BIOS, which has an OEM specific version number and the Intel tool won't let me flash the standard Intel BIOS, so you may run into that issue with your HP board.
This can usually be circumvented using the BIOS recovery jumper (if available) and booting up with the prepared BIOS disk in the floppy drive. In case you are referring to your Advanced/ML board, the functionality is called "Recovery Boot Enable", move J1F1 from pins 1-2 to 2-3. Then the standard Intel BIOS provided via floppy disk will be flashed when turning on the system. After completion notification, turn off the system, move the jumper back to 1-2 and remove the floppy, and you are done. Just check the BIOS settings after reboot since those will be on the defaults again.
Thanks. To be honest I'm scared to do that as it's the only Socket 7 board I own and I'm not having any bios-related issues with it, so think it's better to resist temptation!
Good to know it can be circumvented - hope the same is true for OP's board if that bios is HP specific.
So, decided to update the BIOS anyway as was having some random errors in Windows and found out the latest version can boot from CD which is quite rare and useful for a Pentium 1 board. Worked a treat - now has the latest Intel BIOS and it can boot from the Win98 CD.
My Retro systems:
1. Pentium 200, 64mb EDO RAM, Matrox Millennium 2mb, 3DFX Voodoo 4mb, DOS6.22 / Win95 / Win98SE
2. Compaq Armada M700 laptop, PIII-450, Win98SE
3. Core2Duo E6600, ATI Radeon 4850, Win XP
So, decided to update the BIOS anyway as was having some random errors in Windows and found out the latest version can boot from CD which is quite rare and useful for a Pentium 1 board. Worked a treat - now has the latest Intel BIOS and it can boot from the Win98 CD.
Here's a update in case anyone else is considering using this mobo, I see a few of them out there for sale.
1) This thing is significantly wider than my old TUSL2-M. It is still mATX form factor, but it is at least 2 inches wider, the TUSL2-M ends just to the right of where the DIMM slots are positioned on the TUSL-L:
In fact it is basically too wide, while it still fits into my case (Thermaltake Versa H15, fairly basic mATX mid-tower), it covers up some of the cable routing slots on the mobo tray and also blocks the use of the optical drive bay.
I have a fairly short LG DVD-RW and a couple of the capacitors on the top right of the mobo prevent it from fitting all the way into the only drive bay in the case:
The rear panel USB connectors also seem a bit more finicky than on the TUSL2-M, I have a Logitech wireless mouse which worked fine on the old mobo but is not detected at all on the new one.
Strangely enough it detects both the keyboard and mousepad components of my wireless Logitech K400 combo just fine, although mousepad gaming ain't really doing it for me.
And finally the only onboard connector I could find for any kind of front panel USB was this, it is labelled USB but the pinout is this bizarre "4 pins next to 6 pins" setup, doesn't look like any of the 4-pin or 8/9-pin USB headers I have seen before and definitely does not fit the connector for my case, which worked perfectly with my old TUSL2-M mobo.
Those issues aside it is up and running Win98SE on my Tualatin 1.4S and some quick benchmarking with 3dMark2001 shows no performance difference at all from the TUSL2-M, so it will do for now but I may just keep my eyes peeled for another TUSL2-M. I guess as always using OEM boards will be a crapshoot, so buyer beware ! Cheers, and thanks to everyone for their input.
